


Silent like the Shadow of Emotion

by CreepyLittleLullaby



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - School, Angst, Avengers Family, BAMF Peter Parker, Character Death, Death, Good Peter, Heavy Angst, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Peter Parker, Magic, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter-centric, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Punishment, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 20:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13302597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreepyLittleLullaby/pseuds/CreepyLittleLullaby
Summary: Peter was a shadow hybrid, and he embodied the very meaning of the word. Quiet and fading into the room like the soft dark reflection of all those who'd made him. He was as soundless as the empty beat of Tony's heart. As quiet as the emotions that had dried up in Tony.Tony never thought anything would ever make him cry like this again.





	Silent like the Shadow of Emotion

            Peter had always been a quiet child. Peter was as silent as the dried well of emotions in Tony’s heart. Dead and emptily soundless. At least, that’s how Tony had always seen him, silent, like a shadow in the room. It made sense. The first half human child at the school, half descent of the shadow realm. A peaceful realm despite the stigma. Peter even proved it. Taking the abuse of his peers with grace and elegance. Never fighting back. Only speaking softly, Tony’s never even heard him raise his voice. Another thing Tony has never been able to do is come to his rescue. One of the professors. Dr. Connors as Tony believes, had always comes to Peter’s aid. Always hovering around Peter, like a moth to a flame.

            It wasn’t that hard to believe though. Everyone knew Connors was friends with Peter’s father, and probably the reason Peter was the first hybrid allowed into Hogwarts. (A successful first trial run if Tony was allowed to interject. Peter was an absolute joy to do science with when the magic professors weren’t looking. And most problems around Peter weren’t his fault.) Though, Tony was proud to say when Connors wasn’t hovering and hogging Peter’s attention -no Tony was not bitter- that Tony was able to claim most of the rest of Peter’s time. Bouncing back and forth theories, the kid was absolutely brilliant. Feeding and forcing water down Peter’s throat, now, Tony got that he was not the most responsible senior, but even Tony admitted that Peter was almost worst at taking care of himself. Peter was always pale and looked close to falling apart. Though Peter mostly attributed that to being out when the sun was out constantly, which made sense. The one time he dragged Peter to sneak out at night the younger had never looked so alive. Thriving in the dark and barely lit atmosphere of night. More lively than Tony had seen him. Just like at the dance. Late in the candle lit night, dancing with pure joy before he disappeared in the middle of the night. Tony had searched for him with his friends, the self-dubbed group of the ‘Avengers’ but, with no luck.

            Peter had stumbled into the house of Raven claw, more pale and cold than Tony had ever seen him before. Neither mentioned it when Peter tucked himself into Tony’s arms and starting sobbing like a child.

            Tony never knew it was so bad.

            The next morning everything was like normal, Peter was still so pale, but at least it wasn’t so sickeningly grey. Peter had always run a little colder than him, but now his skin wasn’t like ice, thankfully. Peter said he’d just gotten rejected it had been hard. Tony didn’t say that he didn’t believe him. Didn’t call him out on his shit. Only accepted the excuse easily and accepted Peter easily. Tony didn’t mention that Gwen Stacy’s had the biggest crush on him too. Just like he never mentioned the weird red inked pages he sometimes saw around Peter’s bunk.

            If he’d done that, would things be different?

\---

            Connors had always given him a weird vibe as a professor. Tony wasn’t one of those pure blood snobs that discriminated fully human wizards or called them mud-bloods. But Connors had something off about him. Whether it was his obsession with experimenting with magic like science, or his interest in hexes and the more morbid instruments of magic, it was definitely the way he stared. Eyes like a predator almost.

            It didn’t help that his eyes also stared directly at Peter. Dear sweet Peter, that looked away every time he caught Professor Connor’s gaze. Peter who disappeared randomly, only to be found leaving Connors lab hours later. Peter who could barely lift his head in the presence of the man.  It made something in Tony feel uneasy. Natasha said there might be a reason, intuition was a strong force. Steve always was quick to say it also may be nothing. Connors was a teacher after all.

            How wrong Steve was.

            Being called into a teacher’s office definitely wasn’t a first. Wouldn’t be a last, it was the first time that Connors had called him into his lab. Tony wasn’t sure why, was it like Peter? Peter never got in trouble, he was a golden child. So why was Tony being called to the same place. Especially when he was so impatient to just leave. Peter and him with going to be playing with an old robot that Tony had smuggled into Hogwarts during winter break. Peter had looked so excited. Apparently Peter didn’t have a home to go to for Christmas and had stayed at Hogwarts for the whole holiday. Tony hadn’t known that Peter’s family was gone.

            Well, next year he hoped that Peter liked Malibu. The stars would be beautiful at least.

            Maybe Peter would like it for summer break too. Tony honestly had more extra rooms and labs than he knew what to do with. And the Avengers would always welcome another member. Bruce would glad to have another science bro.

            “Professor, you wanted to see me?” The older man finally glanced up from his desk as Tony lingered in the doorway, something in Tony’s chest made him pause. A tightening in his heart. Something was off. Very off.

            “Yes Anthony, please do take a seat.” His head was screaming at him. Maybe that was why Tony left the door open just a crack as he faked a confident stride as he slid into the seat of a desk with loose limbs, glancing around casually.

            “So, what’s up teach?” Connors tinkers absentmindedly with his wand.

            “I heard you’re a man of science as well. Is that true?” Tony shrugged, the odd question throwing him off guard. Science?

            “Of sorts? I prefer engineering. Technology is my type of thing. If you want physics or chemistry I’d asked Brucey or Petey, they’re the real science nerds.” Connors nodded.

            “Yes, as I’ve seen. Peter is quite smart. Even so, there are things he still needs to learn, which is why you’d understand why I might ask you to help me with a small experiment, it will take not even a moment. Then you’ll be on your way.” Alarm bells went off in Tony’s head, the same alarm bells that went off when his old man had too much to drink, but Tony brushed them off. Getting up and starting over towards the professor, looking around curiously as Connors seemed to fiddle with his wand, Tony glanced at a strange pen at one of the front desks.

            There was no ink beside it, and the pen was a bright cherry red, just like the ink on the page next to it. It made Tony do a double take, the ink was the same color of the ink Peter had on some of his papers. And looking closely at the odd language script, it looked almost exactly like Peter’s hand writing. The inscription on the pen was the only thing that was written in English.

            Blood quill.

            The alarms screamed and Tony barely was able to dive to the ground before a spell went shrieking over his head. Connor’s smooth voice echoing over the chaos. “Ah, I missed. I’m sorry. Science is done in trial though, you understand don’t you?” Tony kept his head down, he got it now. Connors was absolutely mad. Blood quills, firing spells at students. He was utterly mad.

            And Peter had spent so much time with the man.

            It made Tony sick.

            Desperately, Tony looked wildly around. He left his wand in his room since it was his free hour, he could disarm the professor, he’d have to run. He’d left the door open. The resolve sat heavy in Tony’s chest and he ran, his legs moving with less thought and more instinct, until a startiling pain set into his bone with a bright flash, leaving Tony to struggle for breath and collapse on the ground, twitching, the door was only three feet away. So close.

            “It was supposed to kill you instantly. Huh. I’ll have to tweek it a bit. It’s a shame. I rarely run into test subjects as disposable as you to test these things on. And you being damaged with hinder the results a bit. Mmm. I guess I’ll do better next time. It’s a shame I can’t use Peter, but a dead subject is less useful in my aspects of science.”

            Peter. Peter. Tony’s eyes looked up to the door. Peter suffered because of this mad man. If he didn’t have the strength to get up himself, he had to have the strength to get up for Peter. He had to tell the head of Hogwarts. It didn’t matter if Connors killed him after it. Connors could kill him now. He had to live.

            For Peter.

            For the one kid that was so much like him, but deserved so much more.

            For the kid that he had to protect.

            For his Peter.

            The door swung open so abruptly in made Tony squint, a head of blonde hair and a more anxious head of brown hair sticking to the blonde like a shadow. Steve. And Peter. No. They had to get out of here. Now.

            “Peter, it’s okay, see? We’ll grab Tony and- Tony?!” It must have been a sight, seeing him spasming on the ground, Connor’s hovering over him with a wand. Even Connors was surprised at the sudden visitors. Peter was pressed tightly against Steve’s side, and even Steve was now pressing Peter even tighter against himself now that there was a visible threat. But he wasn’t moving. He needed to get Peter out of here. Get. Out. Get out, get out, get out.

            But then it was like a switch had flipped in Peter. Tony could see it. The way Peter’s eyes hardened and how Connors scrambled back, allowing Steve to go to Tony’s side as Peter hovered over them. Not like a moth, but like a star. Eyes burning bright as dark spider web like patterns started to spread out and infect the corners of his eyes. Burning with a dark and smoking magic energy.

His hands clenched into fists, the deadly black stained brown eyes glaring at the professor with such venom it surprised even Tony, the one that knew him best as the young one advanced upon the elder with slow and hard steps. A volcano of anger boiling in his chest as Peter hissed out his curses like hexes as he forbiddingly approached. Peter was a victim who had had enough. Tony could see it.

            “You can beat me, berate me, chain me to the ground and make me play your sick fucking games,” Peter snarled. Shocking and sending small shots of fear into the members of the Avengers. Peter in front of them like a hellish guardian angel. Dark shadows seemed to come alive, swirling wit spiteful anger on the ground where Peter continued his angry plight. Tony didn’t feel the same fear that Steve did. Tony saw the affects. Steve didn’t know. Steve was afraid that Peter would hurt them. Tony was afraid of Connor hurting Peter.

“You can make me write how worthless I am with the sharpest blood quill as many times, with as many sheets are you want. You can disarm me and leave many for every single boggart you own. You can RIP my SKIN off of my flesh with all of your experimental hexes. You can punish me for dancing with the girl of my dreams. You can try and isolate me, and hurt me with the only friend I have.” Tony felt sick at the last lines of poison Peter vaulted at the professor. He knew. He knew now. Peter came to the house with such pale skin and heaving breathings. Those words he flung like weapons, those were accusation you did not just come up with to cause pain. Those are words that come from the pain of suffering through them. And Tony’s heart ached.

He saw the blood quill too late.

            Peter stopped, dead in front of the professor who was staring at him with eyes that withheld mild shock and a well veiled amount of worry. Connor had never caculated for this to happen for Peter to snap so suddenly. So quietly and so viciously. Like a quiet shoot of bamboo, silently breaking into sharp dangerous shards without a sound. The own youngers eyes meeting his filled with such cold hate and scarred pain. The next words were so quiet, it made everyone almost wished they’d been yelled. It would have been easier to bare.

            “You can kill me. You already have almost made me kill myself. But, you’ve touched my friends now. Now, I don’t care how much of your abuse I can take. Because they will be taking none of it. They will not hurt in the ways I’ve hurt. I will be dead before they ever have the chance too.”

            What happened next was too fast for even Tony to follow as Steve tried to pull him up, another bright flash that was abruptly swallowed by shadow. A high pitched shriek and the sound of two bodies hitting the ground. Tony struggled to lift his head, then further struggled to move with a more vicious effort.

            Connors was still standing, bleeding sluggishly from his hand, a wand laid broken on the ground in front of him. Just like Peter, who was laying in front of Connors as well. Quiet and pale like the moon. And still. Way too still. Tony’s limbs struggled to cooperate as he half crawled to Peter, only four feet away. Ignoring the way, the Connors struggled as Steve broke his own stupor to tackle and restrain Connors. Leaving Tony to hold Peter.

            He was so cold and limp.  Tony held Peter’s head carefully, the unmoving limb lulling back unconsciously. The webs on Peter’s eyes had faded to near non-existence on his pale skin. Peter’s eyes were still open. The burning and curious light in Peter’s eyes had faded just like the web pattern on his skin. Peter wasn’t there anymore. Peter had left. Just like his existence he’d left, soundlessly. Shadow evaporating to the brightness of day. And Tony could only hold his body tightly as various teachers rushed in to help.

            Peter couldn’t be helped anymore. Peter was in a better place now.

            Because Tony had failed.

            Because Peter had decided to protect Tony instead.

            Because Peter was too good for this world anyway.

            And Tony cried.

            Because that’s all he could do anymore.


End file.
